


Rejection hurts

by QueenOfFangirls



Series: Wrongs will be righted if we're united [3]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Adoption, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drinking to Cope, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Prayer, Rejection, Religion, actually like a lot of homophobia, dead parent i guess, just a lot of religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-01 21:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfFangirls/pseuds/QueenOfFangirls
Summary: Rejection hurts, it stings like a bee. Jack learned what rejection feels like at a young age, yet nothing matched this.





	Rejection hurts

Rejection hurts. Jack Kelly learned this at a young age when the doctors rejected him from seeing Mama one last time. He learned rejection when foster home lucky number 7 kicked him out because he said he was in love with a boy at school, and then once more when the pain medicine stopped working with the belts.

 

Jack has had his heart ripped out many times, but nothing matched rejection by the adoption agency. The pain was burned into his skull, yet David’s burned deep into his heart. He was the one who wanted a kid, and it made sense since he does so well with them.

 

The pain is still fresh, happening earlier that January day. Jack just happened to check his email that day when he saw the agency had sent him the email, sent to him at eight o'clock sharp. He breath was taken away in a flash of fear. Make or break moment to a start of a family, right?

 

He clicked on the email, and started reading it over and over. If you listen closely, you clearly hear Jack's heart breaking, shattering into tiny pieces.

 

His mind started racing. Did the social worker thought that there was too many bottles of beer in the fridge, that the pistol they use in case of a break-in was not hidden enough in the back of his nightstand, strapped with bullets hidden behind the shelf above the bed, or was it pure homophobia and disgust of the two wrapped in the wedding photos and bliss?

 

The thought of his own wedding brought him down to earth. He had David to think of. He scrambled to find his phone to call his husband. One ring had no answer. The second ring led Jack to started swearing for him to pick up the phone. The third ring had nothing to it, followed by a voicemail.

 

_Hey, it's David  Jacobs-Kelly. I can't come to phone right now, but leave me a message and I'll get back to you. Thank you._

 

_At the tone please record your message._

 

As Jack pressed on his phone to hang up. he had a bad feeling brewing inside of him. He looked around his cubicle for his jacket, and raced out the door. He could work from home for a while anyhow.

* * *

 

 

 In New York, walking meant running and running meant going as fast as you could in a crowded street. At the moment, Jack was running. Past the tourists, past the bodegas to the Upper west side.

 

The townhouse seemed quiet. Far too quiet with the fact that his husband writes music for a living, dreaming to be on top of the stage on Broadway. Jack pulled off his jacket and toed off his shoes. He made his way around the house, trying to find his husband. He was nowhere in the kitchen, laundry room, living room, the study which they made into an overgrow music room with enough sheet music to please a 15 year old theater geek or their bedroom.

 

Just as Jack was about to call him, a loud crash came from the planned nursery the managed to skim his mind. Jack raced upstairs, opening the door and seeing his husband on the floor, drinking straight out of a whiskey bottle, with a broken bottle of wine of the other side of room. David didn’t bother to look up to his husband, just absentmindedly scrolling through his phone in a drunken state, chugging down the whiskey.

 

“Davey, what happened?”Jack asked, standing over his man. “Does it matter? Nothing matter anymore.” David slurred, taking a swig. “I failed a kid on being their parent, just because I love you.” A second bottle was down for the count, nothing more than a hunk of glass. As David launched it across the room, the shatter matched Jack’s heart.

 

They tried their best, trying to make a true family. They tried surrogacy (that didn't end well when the woman realized that they were gay,) foster care (the man refused them inside) and adoption now completed the failure trifecta. Jack slid down the wall, painted in a starry night that Jack worked on for two whole weeks after work. He laid his head on David’s shoulder, and pulled him in closer, as floodgates opened up.

 

* * *

 

 

The sobs stopped hours ago, now with David out cold, Jack was left with broken glass and fear to clean up. After all they done to prove to be good people, Jack having a well paying job for years now at _The World_ , David working at a music store in Hell's Kitchen part time, plays at parties and writes music here and there. They're married for almost nine months now, living in a good part of town with plenty of room and food on the table and a roof over their heads.

 

Yet, just because he was married to a man, it made all that worthless.

 

The glass now cleaned up, leaving Jack with only his thoughts. 

 

Jack crept into his bedroom, with the dim flashlight on his phone. He rumbled through the desk, looking for the rosary Mama gave him all those years ago. He found it in the top drawer, without tangles and Him still shiny.

 

Dear God, this felt weird in so many ways, but Jack just needed something. He knelt down by his bedside, made the sign of the cross, and starting praying. Jack was rather surprised he knew the words of each bead and point after being a “jew-ish” man for the last couple of months.

 

The prayers went by fast, as Jack reached the end of it, he wanted to add something of his own, verbally.

 

He looked up to the ceiling, like any minute God would take off his roof and listen one on one. “Hey God, can ya hear me? I know it’s uh, been a while since we last talk and I just kinda of need ya right now. If yous truly made me gay and your word says I’ma freak, then ya surely wouldn’t make me gay, or even put me here.”

 

Jack paused and licked his lips. “Right?”

 

“I just want to be happy," He continued.  "Have a family, live a happy life. So please, I am begging you, give me a child that needs a home.”

 

With that said and done, the rosary went on the bedside table, and Jack crawled into bed, hoping He would hear his prayer.

**Author's Note:**

> oh hey i'm alive.


End file.
